June 30, 2006
It’s the end of the month and we have all probably seen way too many crappy TV ads.
The following is my nomination for the most creative.
It’s from the makers of Guinness (the beer) and is called Evolution. Here is the making of the video.
It reminded me of the hillarious FedEx commercial from the Super Bowl this year mixed with the reverse chronological story-telling used in Memento.
And because we are all in the mood, 3 new lemurs have been discovered and the seasonal excavation of the L.A. Tar Pits has begun.
Via Cosmic Variance.
What do you get when you mix the posterboy of purity and innocence with the hedonistic vices of Malibu’s Most Wanted?
Jamie Kennedy finally turned Bob Saget to the dark side.
Mike Jones!
Following up with the idea of launching a von Neumann probe into space is yet another math exercise.
For simplicity sake, let us assume that this self-replicating nanofactory is the size of the Chandra X-Ray observatory, which is the heaviest non-military, declassified object launched into orbit in one piece (the Mir Station weighed 150 tons but was comprised of separately launched modules as is the ISS). Chandra weighs approximately 4800 kilograms or about 10,500 pounds.
Some of the assumptions being made include: momentum is conserved, that there is no atmospheric drag, and that the railgun launching the probe into space uses some kind of frictionless material (e.g. superconducting magnets) to accelerate the object. And for the sake of pushing the envelope, the probe will be launched at 90% of the speed of light.
So how does this jive with the all too famous equation: E = mc2?
Here is what we have so far: E = (4800 Kg) * (.9)(300000000 m/s)2. In order to achieve this speed it needs roughly 1,296,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. Plus if you want to take into consideration launching it from some place like Earth, you have to factor in escape velocity, which is roughly 25,000 mph — fairly trivial.
It can be done Jim, but I don’t have my medicine bag
According to the Energy Information Administration, as of March 2006, the combined production of all nuclear power plants in the United States was approximately 63,721,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So generating the required amount of electricity necessary for launching the probe is realistically feasible.
The reason I used 90% of the speed of light in the example was that if an advanced civilization had mastered the use of self-replicating nanofactories, that it is quite possible for them to construct this launching device and attempt a voyage to Earth in less than 200,000 years.
And this is the main reason I do not think such a civilization exists in our galaxy, because if they had the capability to build self-replicating probes, they would also have the telescopic means to detect the presence of life on other planets and would attempt to explore them.
For instance, via spectrum analysis astronomers today can detect what kind of elements comprise extrasolar planets. They can tell whether or not a planet is rocky or a gas giant and if it has a relatively low-mass or is a brown dwarf.
Furthermore, extremely large optical telescopes in the planning stages, such as the OWL, will give astronomers on Earth an unprecedented look at the neighborhoods next door. And such devices would be readily used by a highly sophisticated civilization during their exploration and cataloguing of the cosmos.
Or another way of looking at it, in an effort to perpetuate their survival and prevent cataclysmic events such as asteroid collisions, an advanced civilization would construct devices capable of detecting things like NEOs as we do (e.g. Pan-STARRS). And to plan for the long run, to determine if any planet or star would eventually crash into their world, they would engineer bigger and better telescopes capable of detecting these masses. Thus, eventually mapping the galaxy and little old Earth.
Intergalactic planetary, planetary intergalactic
The only thing really bugging me is how a probe moving at such a high velocity would slow down without leaving a large impact crater somewhere. While I am familiar with aerobraking used by many probes (such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) to shed the tremendous velocities safely, how would you stop a 5 ton projectile flying at near the speed of light?
Perhaps long-period comets (like Halley’s) hold the answer: patience and many many orbits. In fact, while they themselves cannot self-replicate, have they not become an integral player in theorizing how biological life might travel across solar systems (i.e. panspermia)?
June 29, 2006
David Hasselhoff has made a lot of weird music videos. His latest one is just down right shady as he hits on 3 girls half his age.
Err, talk to me again in 30 years when I’m cruising around with KITT.
As far as trendy t-shirts, personally I am partial to the “Right to Bear Arms” (it’s a picture of a guy with furry bear arms) and “I am big in Japan.”
Yesterday’s WSJ discussed the SETI@home project, noting that its pie-in-the-sky mission is diverting useful resources that could otherwise be used to analyze protein synthesis, help with cancer research and model the climate.
Back in my last year of high school, my friends and I created a SETI@home team called “The Vatos” — as we were fond of the quixotic notion that we could find another Wow! signal. Seven years later, about the only thing discovered is a bunch of lonely pulsars.
Nevertheless, astronomers such as Peter Backus noted, that over the past 50 years of listening and searching, only a very small portion of the sky has ever been scanned. And in his view it is improbable that given the resources currently devoted to scanning the cosmos, that these signals will be found. However I doubt that even with an exponential increase in resources that any signal will be detected.
While I do not think that SETI is a religion, I find myself in agreement with individuals like Frank Tipler, who believe that SETI projects are largely a waste of resources… because ET probably does not exist anywhere in this galaxy.
Decades old debate
Back in the 1970’s and ’80s, two astronomers – John Barrow and Frank Tipler – were shaking up the SETI landscape by suggesting that if advanced civilizations exist somewhere in the galaxy, we would already know about it.
They proposed that an advanced civilization would create and use von Neumann probes to explore the galaxy. These probes are named after the German mathematician – John von Neumann – who conjured up a contraption that could self-replicate itself entirely, from any given material. And because of its inherently robust qualities, they would be an ideal candidate for the dangers of space flight.
The basic idea that Barrow and Tipler were theorizing was that a probe would, however slowly, be launched from the Home planet, land on an asteroid, meteor, comet or even another planet and create a copy of itself from the available material. These probes could continue replicating and hopping across solar systems until they had effectively populated the galaxy. And while traversing the vast expanses of the Milky Way they would leave messenger ships behind to further explore regions or even assimilate and create “sentient” planetoids (e.g. Matrioshka Brain, Jupiter Brain).
While this sounds far fetched and something shown late at night on SciFi, the math behind it is fairly compelling.
Let us assume that humanity manages to create a self-replicating nanofactory system that can be launched safely into space. While on its way to acquire targets, ground controllers could continually update its computer systems with new designs for when it replicates itself (such as how to build a faster rocket or more capable computer). It can then proceed to land on a foreign body and begin the process of replication (the replication process could be continuously fine-tuned and optimized through either its own dynamic AI or from information sent to it via the engineers on Earth).
Off the drawing board
As of this writing, the fastest man-made object launched into space was the recent New Horizons probe to Pluto (technically speaking, Voyager 1 is moving slightly faster). It is traveling at approximately 37,700 mph. Not assuming gravity assists, here are some important numbers to keep in mind.
One light-year is 5,878,625,373,183 miles. It would take 158,881,766 hours for the craft to travel that distance, which is about 18,100 years. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter. So it would therefore take around 20 billion years to reach every corner of the galaxy.
While that sounds like an incredibly long time, consider this: the example above used available rocket technology today based largely on chemical reactions. If another kind of propellant or engine is used to power the probes acceleration (e.g. fusion, ion thruster, solar sails), the duration for exploration could be reduced significantly.
For instance, several days ago I discussed Project Babylon which was essentially a very large artillery piece capable of shooting several tons of cargo into space. Similarly, the Navy is working on a ballistics project called DD(X) which uses railguns to lob 40 pound projectiles into Low-Earth Orbit.
As a result, many moons from now it may be possible to use a very long and powerful railgun to launch von Neumann probes at speeds around 1-2% the speed of light. Thus, it would take only 10 million years to explore the entire galaxy. And several hundred million more to explore many others.
The Right Stuff
I mention this seemingly feasible scenario not to disprove the existence of extraterrestrial life, but to shed light on the fact that if advanced civilizations like our own existed, it would probably have visited us by now (or is on its way as we speak). [Note: I have previously criticized UFOlogy here and here. See also debunking from Space.com here and here.]
Carl Sagan and other pro-SETI astronomers had rebuttals (1 2) back when the debate was in full swing. These consisted largely of prescribing the farcical Prime Directive into the aliens’ ethical system of practice. And at that point the debate gets tied up forever, because every Tom, Dick and Harry can just as easily come up with a reason as to why a hypothetical Spock is or is not interacting with us.
For better and for worse we already launch probes into space, so if given the ability to make the probes more effective with self-replicating systems, why would we not? It would be an extremely cheap, quick and easy way to explore the surrounding solar systems without having to brave the solar elements with our frail bodies. And assuming that intelligent life arises via biological processes, would not an alien civilization be confronted with the same decision?
Perhaps SETI will find something one day, I would not invest in it though. Check out the Singularity instead.
June 28, 2006
Last month I mentioned that scientists had engineered a technique which converts the random “Brownianâ€? movement of atoms into useable energy.
In his latest installment, Roland Piquepaille covers a fascinating way to harvest pedestrian energy. Innovative engineers are hard at work in an effort to grab the energy you create every time you walk up stairs or navigate the sidewalk and just about anything else that generates energy that is otherwise sent into the ground.
This passive method reminded me of new buildings which use “solar” windows, that not only shield occupants from the incoming sun, but also act as mini-solar collectors.
Addendum: some Scotsmen have created a system that uses solar energy from roads and driveways to heat homes and buildings.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about how companies can effectively incorporate “Web 2.0â€? applications and services inside their firm. For instance, over the past year IBM employees have effectively used podcasting to save time, money and streamline long distance operations internally. And in addition to putting a human-face on a seemingly impersonal entity, weblogs can also help foster and engender a loyal community as well as add transparency.
To take full advantage of many of the relatively free marketing and advertising benefits characteristic to public weblogs, I have previously suggested that a stereotypically impersonal organization such as Universities could benefit from maintaining a frequently updated blog.
Another technology that I have seen very little use of by firms such as airliners is RSS. This web feed format could help travelers stay abreast of cancellations and delays as it was designed specifically for easy and broad dissemination of frequently updated data.  As a testament to its broad range of universal versatility it is also used by many news organizations such as Reuters, popular P2P applications like BitTorrent, climatologists and most notably in weblogs.
Earlier this week, News.com published a good write-up of other uses these technologies have found in the workplace. Crafty and creative, like home chemistry sets.
June 27, 2006
Ever taken a DNA test to fill in a genealogy tree? Salon published a neat article discussing the growing industry of DNA testing and family trees.
See also: Nature vs Nurture: Using Genetics As A Cop-Out and Genes and jeans, do you own both?
I’ll admit to it: I “gamed” the original Digg system back in the day and now my IP is banned… so that I am effectively prevented from logging in at home. At least I could still receive the main syndication feed.
With the new version 3, it requires that I log into the system in order to view any syndicated story. In fact, of the six that are offered, I can only view the Technology feed. Lame.
BugMeNot has found yet another use.
See also, Markus Frind’s criticism of Digg and a Stephen Carson’s praise of Digg.
